Best Romance Tropes, According to Me
**Tropes and Things I Love in Books**
When it comes to romance novels, there are certain tropes and elements that make a book truly special for me. In this article, I'll be sharing some of my favorite tropes and things that I love to see in romance books.
**Real-Life Issues with Heroes and Heroines**
One trope that I think is really nice to see in romance novels is when the hero and heroine have real-life issues that they're struggling with. This can include mental health struggles, trauma, or other personal demons that make them feel more relatable and human. I've read books that have done a great job of incorporating these types of issues into their stories, and it makes the hero feel even more real to me. For example, in "Twice Shy" by Sarah Hogle, the hero has a debilitating anxiety, and it felt so relatable to see someone who deals with anxiety in a realistic way. I also appreciate when the author handles these types of issues sensitively and realistically, without making it feel like the book is just about the character's mental health struggles.
**Subtle Jealousy**
Another trope that I'm really into is subtle jealousy. I've always been a bit skeptical of over-the-top, controlling heroes who are grumpy and can't spend time around other men. But when I see subtle jealousy in a book, where it's clear that the hero is interested in the heroine but isn't being overt about it, it's really appealing to me. In "Just My Type" by Fallon Ballard, I loved how the author handled this trope. The hero has subtle jealousy towards his girlfriend's friends, and it's not until later on that we realize just how much he was affected by their interactions. It was a subtle sign of his interest in them, but also a reminder that he wasn't controlling or possessive like some other heroes I've read about.
**Romantic Companionship**
Finally, there's one trope that I think is really romantic and appealing: the idea of sleeping next to someone because it's comforting. This can be a hero who has insomnia or nightmares due to trauma, and only finds comfort in having the heroine by his side. I love seeing this type of trope develop into something more in a book - it's like they're taking the idea of being close together but not necessarily intimate, and turning it into a romantic relationship. In my opinion, there's something really special about sharing a bed with someone who makes you feel safe and comfortable.
**Guiding Principles for Romance**
So what are some guiding principles that I look for when reading romance novels? Well, first and foremost, I love to see subtlety over overtness. If a hero or heroine is being controlling or possessive, it's usually a turn-off for me. Instead, I prefer books that show characters with flaws and imperfections, but also with a deep emotional connection to each other. I'm also drawn to romance novels that explore real-life issues in a realistic way - whether it's mental health struggles, trauma, or other personal demons.
**A Note on Personal Taste**
I have to admit that some of these tropes may not be for everyone, and that's okay! Romance is a highly subjective genre, and what one person loves about a book, another person might hate. But for me, these are the types of things that make a romance novel special - real-life issues with heroes and heroines, subtle jealousy, romantic companionship, and a focus on subtlety over overtness.
**Getting to Know Me**
If you're watching my videos regularly, I'm sure you've noticed that I can be a bit picky about the types of books I review. But I think this is because I have high standards when it comes to romance novels - I want to see characters who feel real and relatable, and stories that explore complex emotions and relationships in a realistic way. If you're looking for a guide on what makes a good romance novel for me, I hope this article has given you some insight into my tastes. Let me know in the comments below if you have any favorite tropes or books that you think fit these principles - I'd love to hear about them!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my Channel today I want to talk about some stuff that I love over the past couple of years I have been accumulating a list of tropes and other small specific things in books that I absolutely love I've done a version of this video before where I talked about all the things that I actively dislike in books specifically for the most part romances now that I'm in my sunshine girl era I'm ready to just talk about all the things that I love but before we get into it let me tell you about something else that I love Aura who is kindly sponsoring this portion of today's video did you know that anyone can find anything on the internet including your full legal name your personal email your home address a phone number and even your relatives last time I did a Google search for myself I was surprised to see how much information was readily available this is something that I thought to do recently because I have someone close to me whose 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this portion of today's video all right now let's talk about the tropes and specific things that I like in books mostly romance but also like books with romance subplots so some of these are going to be like actual tropes you've heard of some of them are going to be very specific things that I'm sure you've also heard of but anyway I digress first up we have something that I like kind of recently discovered I would say that I like or I have recently been able to put a word to and that is ex-boyfriend or boyfriend's best friend romances I feel like this is a classic play on the brother's best friend Trope but it takes it like a step further which I think is more fun there's something I don't like about the brother's best friend romance in that the brother is usually like overprotective and I don't know it just doesn't seem super realistic to me like I don't have any brothers so I don't exactly know if that is something that is realistic or not but it doesn't seem very realistic to me right like this idea that my brother would be so invested in my love life that he'd be pissed that his friend wants to date me it's like wouldn't that be great like oh my God my best friend's gonna be in my family forever if we get get married I don't know it just seems a little bit silly of that to like be a Trope then it comes to like non-relatives you know what I mean like me dating my boyfriend's best friend that's a little bit scandalous right like I feel like that's more scandalous it's more high stakes it's more high tension and it has kind of like a similar feel to the brother's best friend romance but I think boyfriend or ex-boyfriend's best friend like the stakes are so much higher I feel like it's so juicy and I won't lie like I don't actually mind cheating in romances I don't think I have that it's like one of my tropes that I've written down but I think it can be like kind of fun and cathartic like do I condone cheating in real life absolutely not but I just think in Romance it could be really fun I love to see women specifically get what they deserve which is a supportive partner and to see them cheating on a guy who's like kind of an I just find it satisfying personally I really like this show but I really find it fun an example of this would be Steal You Away by Victoria Ashley that is like the tropiest version I would say of this Trope I've seen it done a few times but it is just one of my one of my favorites and I don't know what that says about me but I just like melodrama which you'll find out later maybe in this video keep it for me I love this Trope next up on my list is not actually a Trope it's just something that I love to see and that is first person dual POV I don't necessarily care about the tense whether it is past or present tense but I personally like kind of have to have a first person dual POV story it just makes for a really well-rounded romance I'd love to see what a hero or love interest in a book is feeling about the heroine to me it is just so much more exciting than trying to guess what they feel and in some romances I feel like it is a stylistic choice not to get us into the head of the hero actually just finished just my type by Fallon Ballard which is a first person present POV uh that is a singular POV and in that romance like it kind of made sense because we're supposed to not know how he feels about her figure out over time that he has been thinking about her and has been in love with her the whole time like I get that and sometimes I like that but the majority of the time I just want to get inside of the head of the hero that's kind of glaringly obvious whenever I read something like a Mariana Zapata book I love her stuff but sometimes I feel like the heroes come off as because we're not actually in their heads so for me I have to have that first person dual POV it is my favorite and I think it should be like the gold standard of romance know that might be an unpopular opinion I actually did some research recently and a lot of people were saying that they still prefer a third person and I'm just like go the times I like I like a good first person dual POV all right next up is something sort of genre specific and that is that I really love historical romance with a funny rake I don't feel like I've read this very often in historical romance but whenever I do it just works for me so well I feel like oftentimes when you read a hero who is sexually promiscuous he tends to be a little bit closed off emotionally and he doesn't want to fall in love and he's just like not very um nice guy I feel like this is obvious in things like uh Julia Quinn's the Duke and I right like the Duke is very closed off and like emotionally damaged and okay like I get it that's fine but I really love when The Rake who is like sexually experienced is really fun to be around is really funny it's a sense of humor it's really evident in books like this one right here the governess game by Tessa dare I love this hero he is a rake for sure he has been sexually experienced he has definitely been with a lot of women but he is funny he is very well intentioned and he's just a fun guy to read about I just think that's kind of rare surprisingly it's like if a guy's gonna be promiscuous and like not want to share his heart with people um that means he has to be a bad person that's not the case in this book right he's just he's just fine I don't know how many times I can say fun but like that's that's what I'm looking for in a historical romance break next up is a Trope I really really love childhood best friends to lovers honestly friends to lovers in general is great but childhood friends to lovers that is executed flawlessly is probably my favorite Trope I would say I just love the idea of being with someone and knowing that you want to be with someone forever I love that you get to see them and grow with them over time I think that has something to do with the fact that first I'm married to I have been with since I was 16 not exactly like childhood childhood best friends but there's something really romantic and really awesome about growing with someone over time and not growing apart that's not always possible obviously but there is just something so deeply romantic about discovering your feelings for each other as you grow up and I just love this Trope I think it's fantastic I think it can often be done poorly you can have feelings come out of nowhere for one or more of the characters I think you can also will have a situation where the author is trying to build in chemistry between two characters or like a past by just saying oh they were friends in the past and not actually showing that on page when it is well executed childhood friends celebrities just Jessica's Perfection to me I love it it is it's everything I feel like this is another one that I just don't see enough kind of like the historical romance with like the funny break and that would be romances where the hero does not like himself cannot get enough of them I have not read enough of them but the ones that I have read have destroyed me and I feel like I'm just I'm just so close to the books right now that I that I need for my examples lover awakened is a perfect example of this maybe not a perfect example so this one has a specifically damaged hero he has some trauma in his past that makes it to where he is very self-loathing but seeing his transformation into someone who is confident and does know that he deserves love is just so Charming it's so awesome to see a transformation I would say in character and I just love seeing it I have seen this done in Romance before where the hero is not totally traumatized by his past but for some reason or another he just doesn't like himself and doesn't think he's deserving of the heroine I think it can go under a direction that I I don't like sometimes where the hero's like I'm willing to communicate or whatever because of his past and because of you know him not liking himself but when a hero is willing to express the fact that he doesn't like himself grows from that it's too good it is too good I love it I really need to come up with a list of um books I think where the heroes don't like themselves um or I could just write one because that is definitely going to be present in My Romance that I'm writing right now I just love it I just love it okay it is one of my faves next up what else do we have romances with non-traditional conflicts or conflicts that happen for the third act I know a lot of people about a third act conflict and I get it I do it can be frustrating when you feel like you've been reading the same thing over and over again why are you reading romance if that's something that you hate I don't know I just feel like romance is formulaic in a sense like there's always going to be happily ever after you know if it's romance that that is par for the course and I think that's something Charming about romance I love that and I do want to push back on that like hatred I guess for their dad conflicts oftentimes they're necessary in books but that being said I do really appreciate when the third act conflict in a romance doesn't actually involve the couple themselves or it doesn't involve like interpersonal conflict between the two of them like oh no like I really don't think that I have you know the love to give that you need so I'm gonna break up with you blah blah that's fine right like I'm not mad when that conflict happens typically because again that doesn't tend to bother me I don't hate their dot conflicts but I'm really impressed when an author is able to create a conflict that doesn't involve the hero and heroine in an interpersonal sense I think it's interesting when you have someone else trying to Break characters apart or if something happens it really shakes the world of the hero and heroine and they have to actually come together even closer to uh fight against this like external Force to me that is very romantic and is not done often enough in Romance it's something I would like to see done more often I feel like oftentimes you'll have their next breakup and then you'll have them having to come back together and work together but I would love to see more romances where there is no like breakup but they do have to like work together to fight against something or like you know make sure their love is Rocksteady I love that I just think it's interesting and fun and something I'd like to see more of all right here's one that I've changed my mind on I do change my mind from time to time on things I feel like a lot of these things I've Loved forever but Second Chance romance is something that I used to say that I hated I used to think like guys don't deserve a second chance or you know the love interest doesn't deserve a second chance if they've broken the heart the heroine or main character before like I just don't love that and I do kind of understand where I was coming from in a sense but I think I've been reading more and more good second chance romances and I feel like I am starting to love them I like a second chance when it is sort of a right person wrong time scenario like you were young and you had this sort of like young love weren't really dating and then multiple years later you come back into each other's lives or something like that that is the perfect Second Chance romance I don't like when they were like full-on dating hero messes up they break up and then they get back together you know in the book or whatever that doesn't really work for me but I do again really love when it is a right person wrong time I mean maybe I should just call it that but oftentimes that is a second chance right so Second Chance romances are tricky for me but I feel like increasingly the more time goes on I do I do really love them I don't know if this is a Trope or just like a specific thing that I love it's the marriage in babies epilogue I get it I don't think that every epilogue needs to have marriage and babies I think it needs to be fitting of the couple but there's nothing that gets me more than a delightful over the top job marriage and babies that blog I love it because it's what I personally want for myself so I do love to see that for my characters who want those things for themselves as well nothing more needs to be said I know a lot of people about it and I just wanted to put on the record but I love it okay that's something that I enjoy all right next up I'm gonna try to go rapid fire kind of on these ones because I feel like they're sort of self-explanatory Mutual pining I don't know how many times I've had to say on this channel how much I love Mutual pining but there's nothing more delicious than two characters who absolutely adore each other who show in every way but are unable to verbalize it to their respective partner I find it so awesome like it's just so angsty and tension filled which is another thing that I have on my list I love over the top melodrama I love angst intention I want to see these characters burn for each other before they admit their feelings uh you could call it miscommunication I suppose but I just love it I love seeing two characters in love without actually telling each other they're in love till near the end of the book okay it's just something I'm I'm into next step is something that I'm sure a lot of people feel I love a slow burn that is not a 500 page book I think it is more than possible to create a angsty tension-filled longing sort of story without making it 500 pages I know it is probably challenging to convey those emotions and to convey the essence of a slow burn in a shorter page length but someone that does this really well is Elizabeth or work often shocked at how short her books are usually around the 300 Page Mark and yet they are Slow Burn there's not a ton of like hookups at the beginning of the books you tend to just have this delicious Slow Burn never Fizzles out it's awesome I love a good Slow Burn that's not 500 pages next I think I already kind of mentioned this but the miscommunication Trope I know again so many people hate this but it's so realistic people are so bad at communicating their feelings and their emotions and I do think sometimes it can be frustrating when a hero or a heroine a main character or love interest just doesn't Express their feelings in the way that we want them to but I do feel like it is incredibly realistic and it unfortunately does kind of go with the tropes that I really really love like Mutual pining and things like that you can't really have mutual pining if you're both gonna like admit your feelings for each other I I really do like the miscommunication Trope with with caveats obviously there's exceptions to every one of these things on this list like if it's done poorly I'm not gonna like it but I like a miscommunication trip okay I'm not afraid to say it okay a couple of these I pulled from like a separate mini list I was making that sort of Applied more generally to books that aren't romance and one of the things that I have is melodramatic or over-the-top romances specifically in y a bugs I love stuff like City of Bones where the romances feel so high stakes and they feel so tension filled important even though you're like okay y'all are 16 why are you getting so bent out of shape about like the first person you've ever dated to me it just feels so realistic given that each demographic had just given how strong your emotions and how big your emotions feel when you're that age so for me melodrama I love it I love it whether it's why a book or whether it's an adult book I just think it's realistic a lot of people not everybody uh feel that love is one of the most important things in life and to see people I guess treat it with that level of importance in their life it's just fun to read and I love it I love when it's like over the top melodramatic like I would die without you give it to me love it alright so this one is one that I think is like a response to something I don't like don't really like fantasy romance in the traditional sense a lot of the acotar sort of like rip-offs that are really popular right now but I do really love a real worlds slash urban fantasy setting for a romance or just for a ya book or whatever it just works for me I love seeing people deal with real world issues with the added complication of magic it's something that I feel like seems more relatable in a sense because I'm sorry I can't put myself into the shoes of a fey Warrior who is like dealing with some other worldly battles I feel like it is is so nice to read something grounded in reality that does have these added issues especially when that person is experiencing those issues for the first time like oh my God I didn't realize there were vampires around me like to me that is just so fun and I can put myself in the shoes of the hero or heroine even easier I just love it all right next up we have a complicated family Dynamics I really love when a romance specifically includes complicated family Dynamics I feel like oftentimes in Romance family relationships are just glossed over as if they are unimportant or don't affect the actual relationship of the heroin heroine when it very much does whether it is like background on trauma or like present day this is getting in the way of our romance it is so real and so important and I feel like it is often glossed over again or like overlooked and I love it when it's included um I just think it adds a richness to the story like I'm overcoming my trauma to be able to have a successful romance love to see it all right now I'm going to again kind of Rapid Fire throw some things out to you small town romances I absolutely love them I love the charm of Side characters or a setting that feels a little bit unfamiliar to me like small town Michigan in uh Melanie Harlow series I just love getting to kind of enter into another world in a sense that feels real but it's not something that I've personally ever experienced I also really like Bully romances I don't know what about it works for me but um I really like a bully romance especially ones where the heroine fights back against the hero and they kind of bully each other it creates delicious tension I don't want it to be like abusive you know which I think bully romances can often fall into that category but like when they're not chef's kiss himbo and bimbo main characters I really love Piper from It Happened One Summer there's just something so fun about people who are Unapologetic about who they are I feel like oftentimes we get heroines who are really bookish and really smart and whatever and I think that's fine but that is not representative of everybody everywhere so to get somebody that is a little bit different um and maybe isn't the brightest I think it's kind of fun I think it's fun like be Unapologetic about who you are I'd love to see that in Romance single bad romances I as someone who really enjoys marriage and babies I love to see a man who is stepping up for his kids and I love seeing a woman like come into that guy's life and you know be a really good I guess step parent to the guy's kids it's amazing I think a lot of y'all like that Trope too this is a specific thing that I know everybody pretty much loves when the hero or heroine remember something about their love interest and does that thing for the other person like in the right move where our hero makes our heroin coffee every morning even though he doesn't enjoy drinking it just because he really loves her that is so so deeply romantic especially when you haven't admitted your feelings for that person and yet you are showing your feelings by doing these acts of Love or acts of service Perfection I gets me every time next up is something that I recently discovered that I really love through an Elsie silver book and that is a persistent hero who Falls first there is nothing more delightful than a hero who is willing to go balls to the wall to get a heroine to understand how much he loves her not in like a creepy persistent way but in a I just really want to be around you I think you're an amazing person I want to do everything for you sort of way um the hero in that book is definitely misunderstood and to see him fall for the heroine and have to kind of show how much he loves her even when she is really unsure about him it's just perfection all right next up is a book and or a Trope that taught me that I sometimes enjoy sex scenes where parts are not listed uh the book that I'm thinking of is lovelight Farms by BK borison there have been a couple of books that I've read since that I've noticed do this as well but I think often when we read romance or people who are new to the Roman genre I feel like there is this ick that you can sometimes get when words for certain parts are used that you are not a fan of there are definitely big preferences when it comes to this sort of thing but I think it's really incredible when a sex scene is not necessarily closed door but the parts themselves are not necessarily listed by name talking more about the actual Sensations themselves rather than like certain things entering other things I don't know if I'm articulating this well maybe you get it maybe you don't but I just I don't I don't hate when those words are used I feel like I am not that picky when it comes to sex scenes with some caveats but I do think it's really cool when an author's able to say this isn't closed door but also I'm not going to make you gag on how gross these um words amusing are you know what I mean swollen per I don't want euphemisms like I don't want swollen Pearl but I also don't want like anatomical terms either I'm picky okay I'm picky and so just not using the words at all can sometimes be great moving on another thing I'm Gonna Keep on with the sex this is sex Vibes right now earned sex scenes I cannot tell you how irritating it is to read a book that has sex scene after sex scene and I know that this book is written specifically for like a tick tock audience I get it sex scenes and sweaty books are fun I personally prefer an on-page sex scene in a book but I do not like when those scenes are not earned I don't like when characters hook up really early on in books I don't like when there are repeated scenes that feel identical and that nothing new is learned about characters I feel like SMUD should have a purpose right I feel like I should see how your chemistry is working when you are having an intimate moment I should feel like this is the culmination of all of your feelings when you're finally getting together if you have another additional sex scene in a book beyond just the one where they first get together it needs to have a purpose it needs to be earned I am just again I'm just so sick of reading smart smart which I never thought I would say but maybe I'm growing and maturing I don't know I just I really need there to be a purpose for the scene I need it to feel earned I needed to help the character's relationship grow period I mean honestly everything that happens in a romance I think should drive a relationship forward so anyway get off my so Box about that but that that's something that irritates me and I love when the sex scenes are earned next is something that is certainly subjective but I really appreciate when a rom-com is actually funny there are so many books marketed as rom-coms there are so many especially traditionally published books that are marketed as rom-coms they're just simply devoid of humor they're trying to say that like the one witty line of dialogue you have is like oh my God this this is rom-com it irritates me there's so few books that I find actually truly funny that I laugh out loud at and you know maybe be I'm just alone in this but I I get irritated when something's like oh this is like the rom-com of the summer and then I pick it up and I'm like it's it's an unserious romance that does not mean it is a rom-com examples of this that I do actually think are funny are most attest to Bailey's books I do find her humor to be similar to my sense of humor I also like Elizabeth Works books I don't think she markets hers as rom-coms but they do actually make me laugh which I appreciate she has more of a dark sense of humor Tessa Bailey's is um more like I would say accessible senses of humor or like a more traditional sense of humor shall we say her books make me laugh I don't think a lot of people have been enjoying secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey but there were a couple of scenes in that book that made me laugh out loud and to that I say thank you Tessa all right and then the last three things that I have to talk to you about are not tropes but they're things that I again really love first up when Heroes have mental health struggles I feel like oftentimes we have heroines who have mental health struggles that's something that's becoming more and more common but something that I feel like I don't see enough of um and I do like when I do see it would be whenever the hero of the book has a mental health struggle I think it's very realistic a mental health and man it's just not talked about enough and I think seeing it in a romance setting is really nice they're having a couple of books that I've read that have included this that I have felt are taking away from I guess the romance as a whole I want there to be real life issues for a hero and heroine without it feeling like this is just a book about this character's mental health but the couple of books that I've read that have done a really good job with men with mental health struggles it just adds to the richness of the story it makes the hero feel even more real to me books that come to mind for this are Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle the hero in that book has a debilitating anxiety and it felt just so relatable as you know someone who deals with anxiety but also just generally like seeing a hero with mental health struggles instead of a heroin or like in addition to the heroine it's just nice it's nice to say next up is something that I think is sort of hard to put my finger on uh and it is subtle jealousy as I was coming up with a couple of more things to add to the end of this list today I was just thinking about the fact that I read again just my type by Fallon Ballard really recently I give that book five stars that's why I keep mentioning it that book did a really good job with the subtle jealousy I do not like over the top Alpha Heroes who are really controlling um who are grumpy and and are like you can't spend time around other men that's controlling that's not something that I'm into and so I've always said jealousy is not something I like in books however I do appreciate subtle jealousy when it shows that the hero is into the heroine it is like a subtle sign that he is into the heroine in uh just my type our heroine is going on like a series of tasks I guess you could say to show that she can be a single person one of those things is to kiss a stranger and the hero of the book is actually at the bar where she is trying to find someone to kiss and you can see his jealousy kind of come to the Forefront come to a head you're wondering like oh why is he jealous and the heroine's wondering like why is he jealous is he jealous why is he being so grumpy and it's because he has a thing for her he doesn't tell her not to kiss a stranger he is not controlling about it but just that subtle jealousy to kind of show that he is affected by the things that the heroine does that I really enjoy and I've seen that a few times in books um and that works for me again I don't love the over-the-top like you can't do this sort of jealousy but the subtle jealousy I'm very into and then lastly is one that I think I haven't seen any romance in a while but it's something that I really like I feel like I read it a lot in Hawaii back in the day and it is the Trope of I can't sleep unless I'm sleeping next to you usually it's like a hero has insomnia or he has nightmares because of trauma and he needs the heroine to sleep next to him not in a sexual sense but just in a comforting sense I just love it I think it's so romantic and I love seeing it like develop into something more I just think there's something really nice about like we're in the same bed together it's kind of it's similar I guess you could say in a sense to the there's only one bedroom but I think it takes it a step further yeah sing and progress into something romantic is something that I'm very much into so those are the list of things uh tropes and things that I love in books there's definitely more than what I listed here but I feel like this should give you a good idea of the kind of things that I like in books it's hard to articulate when you are very very picky what exactly works and what doesn't and kind of the nuances of that but hopefully this gave you kind of a guideline um to work off of if you watch my videos and you're like okay what does this like I get it I get it I'm very um hard to understand I guess at times I feel like this kind of showed you maybe some of the things I like if you want to see the version of this where I talk about things I I hate in books that one's a little bit more broad it's not just like romance specific I'll leave a link to that in the description down below but thanks so much for watching this video in the comments down below let me know if you like any of these tropes and let me know also what your favorite tropes are or like things that you love to see in Romance or books in general I love else so much and until next time thank youhello welcome back to my Channel today I want to talk about some stuff that I love over the past couple of years I have been accumulating a list of tropes and other small specific things in books that I absolutely love I've done a version of this video before where I talked about all the things that I actively dislike in books specifically for the most part romances now that I'm in my sunshine girl era I'm ready to just talk about all the things that I love but before we get into it let me tell you about something else that I love Aura who is kindly sponsoring this portion of today's video did you know that anyone can find anything on the internet including your full legal name your personal email your home address a phone number and even your relatives last time I did a Google search for myself I was surprised to see how much information was readily available this is something that I thought to do recently because I have someone close to me whose identity was recently stolen and they never lost track of any other information they didn't lose like their social security card or anything but their identity was stolen just from information that could easily and readily be found online which is pretty nerve-wracking and 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and secure some of my accounts and get a little bit more creative with my passwords Ora's app also features VPN password manager real-time credit and identity theft monitoring internet parental controls and protects your devices from malware Aura has almost every Internet safety tool you'll ever need all inside one app let Laura do the hard work of keeping you safe online if you stand up right now or I will give you a two-week free trial with my link you'll be shocked at how much of your private information or horrified exposed over those two weeks again go to aura.com Chandler Ainsley to start your free trial also linked in the description and again with the QR code on screen thanks again to Aura for sponsoring this portion of today's video all right now let's talk about the tropes and specific things that I like in books mostly romance but also like books with romance subplots so some of these are going to be like actual tropes you've heard of some of them are going to be very specific things that I'm sure you've also heard of but anyway I digress first up we have something that I like kind of recently discovered I would say that I like or I have recently been able to put a word to and that is ex-boyfriend or boyfriend's best friend romances I feel like this is a classic play on the brother's best friend Trope but it takes it like a step further which I think is more fun there's something I don't like about the brother's best friend romance in that the brother is usually like overprotective and I don't know it just doesn't seem super realistic to me like I don't have any brothers so I don't exactly know if that is something that is realistic or not but it doesn't seem very realistic to me right like this idea that my brother would be so invested in my love life that he'd be pissed that his friend wants to date me it's like wouldn't that be great like oh my God my best friend's gonna be in my family forever if we get get married I don't know it just seems a little bit silly of that to like be a Trope then it comes to like non-relatives you know what I mean like me dating my boyfriend's best friend that's a little bit scandalous right like I feel like that's more scandalous it's more high stakes it's more high tension and it has kind of like a similar feel to the brother's best friend romance but I think boyfriend or ex-boyfriend's best friend like the stakes are so much higher I feel like it's so juicy and I won't lie like I don't actually mind cheating in romances I don't think I have that it's like one of my tropes that I've written down but I think it can be like kind of fun and cathartic like do I condone cheating in real life absolutely not but I just think in Romance it could be really fun I love to see women specifically get what they deserve which is a supportive partner and to see them cheating on a guy who's like kind of an I just find it satisfying personally I really like this show but I really find it fun an example of this would be Steal You Away by Victoria Ashley that is like the tropiest version I would say of this Trope I've seen it done a few times but it is just one of my one of my favorites and I don't know what that says about me but I just like melodrama which you'll find out later maybe in this video keep it for me I love this Trope next up on my list is not actually a Trope it's just something that I love to see and that is first person dual POV I don't necessarily care about the tense whether it is past or present tense but I personally like kind of have to have a first person dual POV story it just makes for a really well-rounded romance I'd love to see what a hero or love interest in a book is feeling about the heroine to me it is just so much more exciting than trying to guess what they feel and in some romances I feel like it is a stylistic choice not to get us into the head of the hero actually just finished just my type by Fallon Ballard which is a first person present POV uh that is a singular POV and in that romance like it kind of made sense because we're supposed to not know how he feels about her figure out over time that he has been thinking about her and has been in love with her the whole time like I get that and sometimes I like that but the majority of the time I just want to get inside of the head of the hero that's kind of glaringly obvious whenever I read something like a Mariana Zapata book I love her stuff but sometimes I feel like the heroes come off as because we're not actually in their heads so for me I have to have that first person dual POV it is my favorite and I think it should be like the gold standard of romance know that might be an unpopular opinion I actually did some research recently and a lot of people were saying that they still prefer a third person and I'm just like go the times I like I like a good first person dual POV all right next up is something sort of genre specific and that is that I really love historical romance with a funny rake I don't feel like I've read this very often in historical romance but whenever I do it just works for me so well I feel like oftentimes when you read a hero who is sexually promiscuous he tends to be a little bit closed off emotionally and he doesn't want to fall in love and he's just like not very um nice guy I feel like this is obvious in things like uh Julia Quinn's the Duke and I right like the Duke is very closed off and like emotionally damaged and okay like I get it that's fine but I really love when The Rake who is like sexually experienced is really fun to be around is really funny it's a sense of humor it's really evident in books like this one right here the governess game by Tessa dare I love this hero he is a rake for sure he has been sexually experienced he has definitely been with a lot of women but he is funny he is very well intentioned and he's just a fun guy to read about I just think that's kind of rare surprisingly it's like if a guy's gonna be promiscuous and like not want to share his heart with people um that means he has to be a bad person that's not the case in this book right he's just he's just fine I don't know how many times I can say fun but like that's that's what I'm looking for in a historical romance break next up is a Trope I really really love childhood best friends to lovers honestly friends to lovers in general is great but childhood friends to lovers that is executed flawlessly is probably my favorite Trope I would say I just love the idea of being with someone and knowing that you want to be with someone forever I love that you get to see them and grow with them over time I think that has something to do with the fact that first I'm married to I have been with since I was 16 not exactly like childhood childhood best friends but there's something really romantic and really awesome about growing with someone over time and not growing apart that's not always possible obviously but there is just something so deeply romantic about discovering your feelings for each other as you grow up and I just love this Trope I think it's fantastic I think it can often be done poorly you can have feelings come out of nowhere for one or more of the characters I think you can also will have a situation where the author is trying to build in chemistry between two characters or like a past by just saying oh they were friends in the past and not actually showing that on page when it is well executed childhood friends celebrities just Jessica's Perfection to me I love it it is it's everything I feel like this is another one that I just don't see enough kind of like the historical romance with like the funny break and that would be romances where the hero does not like himself cannot get enough of them I have not read enough of them but the ones that I have read have destroyed me and I feel like I'm just I'm just so close to the books right now that I that I need for my examples lover awakened is a perfect example of this maybe not a perfect example so this one has a specifically damaged hero he has some trauma in his past that makes it to where he is very self-loathing but seeing his transformation into someone who is confident and does know that he deserves love is just so Charming it's so awesome to see a transformation I would say in character and I just love seeing it I have seen this done in Romance before where the hero is not totally traumatized by his past but for some reason or another he just doesn't like himself and doesn't think he's deserving of the heroine I think it can go under a direction that I I don't like sometimes where the hero's like I'm willing to communicate or whatever because of his past and because of you know him not liking himself but when a hero is willing to express the fact that he doesn't like himself grows from that it's too good it is too good I love it I really need to come up with a list of um books I think where the heroes don't like themselves um or I could just write one because that is definitely going to be present in My Romance that I'm writing right now I just love it I just love it okay it is one of my faves next up what else do we have romances with non-traditional conflicts or conflicts that happen for the third act I know a lot of people about a third act conflict and I get it I do it can be frustrating when you feel like you've been reading the same thing over and over again why are you reading romance if that's something that you hate I don't know I just feel like romance is formulaic in a sense like there's always going to be happily ever after you know if it's romance that that is par for the course and I think that's something Charming about romance I love that and I do want to push back on that like hatred I guess for their dad conflicts oftentimes they're necessary in books but that being said I do really appreciate when the third act conflict in a romance doesn't actually involve the couple themselves or it doesn't involve like interpersonal conflict between the two of them like oh no like I really don't think that I have you know the love to give that you need so I'm gonna break up with you blah blah that's fine right like I'm not mad when that conflict happens typically because again that doesn't tend to bother me I don't hate their dot conflicts but I'm really impressed when an author is able to create a conflict that doesn't involve the hero and heroine in an interpersonal sense I think it's interesting when you have someone else trying to Break characters apart or if something happens it really shakes the world of the hero and heroine and they have to actually come together even closer to uh fight against this like external Force to me that is very romantic and is not done often enough in Romance it's something I would like to see done more often I feel like oftentimes you'll have their next breakup and then you'll have them having to come back together and work together but I would love to see more romances where there is no like breakup but they do have to like work together to fight against something or like you know make sure their love is Rocksteady I love that I just think it's interesting and fun and something I'd like to see more of all right here's one that I've changed my mind on I do change my mind from time to time on things I feel like a lot of these things I've Loved forever but Second Chance romance is something that I used to say that I hated I used to think like guys don't deserve a second chance or you know the love interest doesn't deserve a second chance if they've broken the heart the heroine or main character before like I just don't love that and I do kind of understand where I was coming from in a sense but I think I've been reading more and more good second chance romances and I feel like I am starting to love them I like a second chance when it is sort of a right person wrong time scenario like you were young and you had this sort of like young love weren't really dating and then multiple years later you come back into each other's lives or something like that that is the perfect Second Chance romance I don't like when they were like full-on dating hero messes up they break up and then they get back together you know in the book or whatever that doesn't really work for me but I do again really love when it is a right person wrong time I mean maybe I should just call it that but oftentimes that is a second chance right so Second Chance romances are tricky for me but I feel like increasingly the more time goes on I do I do really love them I don't know if this is a Trope or just like a specific thing that I love it's the marriage in babies epilogue I get it I don't think that every epilogue needs to have marriage and babies I think it needs to be fitting of the couple but there's nothing that gets me more than a delightful over the top job marriage and babies that blog I love it because it's what I personally want for myself so I do love to see that for my characters who want those things for themselves as well nothing more needs to be said I know a lot of people about it and I just wanted to put on the record but I love it okay that's something that I enjoy all right next up I'm gonna try to go rapid fire kind of on these ones because I feel like they're sort of self-explanatory Mutual pining I don't know how many times I've had to say on this channel how much I love Mutual pining but there's nothing more delicious than two characters who absolutely adore each other who show in every way but are unable to verbalize it to their respective partner I find it so awesome like it's just so angsty and tension filled which is another thing that I have on my list I love over the top melodrama I love angst intention I want to see these characters burn for each other before they admit their feelings uh you could call it miscommunication I suppose but I just love it I love seeing two characters in love without actually telling each other they're in love till near the end of the book okay it's just something I'm I'm into next step is something that I'm sure a lot of people feel I love a slow burn that is not a 500 page book I think it is more than possible to create a angsty tension-filled longing sort of story without making it 500 pages I know it is probably challenging to convey those emotions and to convey the essence of a slow burn in a shorter page length but someone that does this really well is Elizabeth or work often shocked at how short her books are usually around the 300 Page Mark and yet they are Slow Burn there's not a ton of like hookups at the beginning of the books you tend to just have this delicious Slow Burn never Fizzles out it's awesome I love a good Slow Burn that's not 500 pages next I think I already kind of mentioned this but the miscommunication Trope I know again so many people hate this but it's so realistic people are so bad at communicating their feelings and their emotions and I do think sometimes it can be frustrating when a hero or a heroine a main character or love interest just doesn't Express their feelings in the way that we want them to but I do feel like it is incredibly realistic and it unfortunately does kind of go with the tropes that I really really love like Mutual pining and things like that you can't really have mutual pining if you're both gonna like admit your feelings for each other I I really do like the miscommunication Trope with with caveats obviously there's exceptions to every one of these things on this list like if it's done poorly I'm not gonna like it but I like a miscommunication trip okay I'm not afraid to say it okay a couple of these I pulled from like a separate mini list I was making that sort of Applied more generally to books that aren't romance and one of the things that I have is melodramatic or over-the-top romances specifically in y a bugs I love stuff like City of Bones where the romances feel so high stakes and they feel so tension filled important even though you're like okay y'all are 16 why are you getting so bent out of shape about like the first person you've ever dated to me it just feels so realistic given that each demographic had just given how strong your emotions and how big your emotions feel when you're that age so for me melodrama I love it I love it whether it's why a book or whether it's an adult book I just think it's realistic a lot of people not everybody uh feel that love is one of the most important things in life and to see people I guess treat it with that level of importance in their life it's just fun to read and I love it I love when it's like over the top melodramatic like I would die without you give it to me love it alright so this one is one that I think is like a response to something I don't like don't really like fantasy romance in the traditional sense a lot of the acotar sort of like rip-offs that are really popular right now but I do really love a real worlds slash urban fantasy setting for a romance or just for a ya book or whatever it just works for me I love seeing people deal with real world issues with the added complication of magic it's something that I feel like seems more relatable in a sense because I'm sorry I can't put myself into the shoes of a fey Warrior who is like dealing with some other worldly battles I feel like it is is so nice to read something grounded in reality that does have these added issues especially when that person is experiencing those issues for the first time like oh my God I didn't realize there were vampires around me like to me that is just so fun and I can put myself in the shoes of the hero or heroine even easier I just love it all right next up we have a complicated family Dynamics I really love when a romance specifically includes complicated family Dynamics I feel like oftentimes in Romance family relationships are just glossed over as if they are unimportant or don't affect the actual relationship of the heroin heroine when it very much does whether it is like background on trauma or like present day this is getting in the way of our romance it is so real and so important and I feel like it is often glossed over again or like overlooked and I love it when it's included um I just think it adds a richness to the story like I'm overcoming my trauma to be able to have a successful romance love to see it all right now I'm going to again kind of Rapid Fire throw some things out to you small town romances I absolutely love them I love the charm of Side characters or a setting that feels a little bit unfamiliar to me like small town Michigan in uh Melanie Harlow series I just love getting to kind of enter into another world in a sense that feels real but it's not something that I've personally ever experienced I also really like Bully romances I don't know what about it works for me but um I really like a bully romance especially ones where the heroine fights back against the hero and they kind of bully each other it creates delicious tension I don't want it to be like abusive you know which I think bully romances can often fall into that category but like when they're not chef's kiss himbo and bimbo main characters I really love Piper from It Happened One Summer there's just something so fun about people who are Unapologetic about who they are I feel like oftentimes we get heroines who are really bookish and really smart and whatever and I think that's fine but that is not representative of everybody everywhere so to get somebody that is a little bit different um and maybe isn't the brightest I think it's kind of fun I think it's fun like be Unapologetic about who you are I'd love to see that in Romance single bad romances I as someone who really enjoys marriage and babies I love to see a man who is stepping up for his kids and I love seeing a woman like come into that guy's life and you know be a really good I guess step parent to the guy's kids it's amazing I think a lot of y'all like that Trope too this is a specific thing that I know everybody pretty much loves when the hero or heroine remember something about their love interest and does that thing for the other person like in the right move where our hero makes our heroin coffee every morning even though he doesn't enjoy drinking it just because he really loves her that is so so deeply romantic especially when you haven't admitted your feelings for that person and yet you are showing your feelings by doing these acts of Love or acts of service Perfection I gets me every time next up is something that I recently discovered that I really love through an Elsie silver book and that is a persistent hero who Falls first there is nothing more delightful than a hero who is willing to go balls to the wall to get a heroine to understand how much he loves her not in like a creepy persistent way but in a I just really want to be around you I think you're an amazing person I want to do everything for you sort of way um the hero in that book is definitely misunderstood and to see him fall for the heroine and have to kind of show how much he loves her even when she is really unsure about him it's just perfection all right next up is a book and or a Trope that taught me that I sometimes enjoy sex scenes where parts are not listed uh the book that I'm thinking of is lovelight Farms by BK borison there have been a couple of books that I've read since that I've noticed do this as well but I think often when we read romance or people who are new to the Roman genre I feel like there is this ick that you can sometimes get when words for certain parts are used that you are not a fan of there are definitely big preferences when it comes to this sort of thing but I think it's really incredible when a sex scene is not necessarily closed door but the parts themselves are not necessarily listed by name talking more about the actual Sensations themselves rather than like certain things entering other things I don't know if I'm articulating this well maybe you get it maybe you don't but I just I don't I don't hate when those words are used I feel like I am not that picky when it comes to sex scenes with some caveats but I do think it's really cool when an author's able to say this isn't closed door but also I'm not going to make you gag on how gross these um words amusing are you know what I mean swollen per I don't want euphemisms like I don't want swollen Pearl but I also don't want like anatomical terms either I'm picky okay I'm picky and so just not using the words at all can sometimes be great moving on another thing I'm Gonna Keep on with the sex this is sex Vibes right now earned sex scenes I cannot tell you how irritating it is to read a book that has sex scene after sex scene and I know that this book is written specifically for like a tick tock audience I get it sex scenes and sweaty books are fun I personally prefer an on-page sex scene in a book but I do not like when those scenes are not earned I don't like when characters hook up really early on in books I don't like when there are repeated scenes that feel identical and that nothing new is learned about characters I feel like SMUD should have a purpose right I feel like I should see how your chemistry is working when you are having an intimate moment I should feel like this is the culmination of all of your feelings when you're finally getting together if you have another additional sex scene in a book beyond just the one where they first get together it needs to have a purpose it needs to be earned I am just again I'm just so sick of reading smart smart which I never thought I would say but maybe I'm growing and maturing I don't know I just I really need there to be a purpose for the scene I need it to feel earned I needed to help the character's relationship grow period I mean honestly everything that happens in a romance I think should drive a relationship forward so anyway get off my so Box about that but that that's something that irritates me and I love when the sex scenes are earned next is something that is certainly subjective but I really appreciate when a rom-com is actually funny there are so many books marketed as rom-coms there are so many especially traditionally published books that are marketed as rom-coms they're just simply devoid of humor they're trying to say that like the one witty line of dialogue you have is like oh my God this this is rom-com it irritates me there's so few books that I find actually truly funny that I laugh out loud at and you know maybe be I'm just alone in this but I I get irritated when something's like oh this is like the rom-com of the summer and then I pick it up and I'm like it's it's an unserious romance that does not mean it is a rom-com examples of this that I do actually think are funny are most attest to Bailey's books I do find her humor to be similar to my sense of humor I also like Elizabeth Works books I don't think she markets hers as rom-coms but they do actually make me laugh which I appreciate she has more of a dark sense of humor Tessa Bailey's is um more like I would say accessible senses of humor or like a more traditional sense of humor shall we say her books make me laugh I don't think a lot of people have been enjoying secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey but there were a couple of scenes in that book that made me laugh out loud and to that I say thank you Tessa all right and then the last three things that I have to talk to you about are not tropes but they're things that I again really love first up when Heroes have mental health struggles I feel like oftentimes we have heroines who have mental health struggles that's something that's becoming more and more common but something that I feel like I don't see enough of um and I do like when I do see it would be whenever the hero of the book has a mental health struggle I think it's very realistic a mental health and man it's just not talked about enough and I think seeing it in a romance setting is really nice they're having a couple of books that I've read that have included this that I have felt are taking away from I guess the romance as a whole I want there to be real life issues for a hero and heroine without it feeling like this is just a book about this character's mental health but the couple of books that I've read that have done a really good job with men with mental health struggles it just adds to the richness of the story it makes the hero feel even more real to me books that come to mind for this are Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle the hero in that book has a debilitating anxiety and it felt just so relatable as you know someone who deals with anxiety but also just generally like seeing a hero with mental health struggles instead of a heroin or like in addition to the heroine it's just nice it's nice to say next up is something that I think is sort of hard to put my finger on uh and it is subtle jealousy as I was coming up with a couple of more things to add to the end of this list today I was just thinking about the fact that I read again just my type by Fallon Ballard really recently I give that book five stars that's why I keep mentioning it that book did a really good job with the subtle jealousy I do not like over the top Alpha Heroes who are really controlling um who are grumpy and and are like you can't spend time around other men that's controlling that's not something that I'm into and so I've always said jealousy is not something I like in books however I do appreciate subtle jealousy when it shows that the hero is into the heroine it is like a subtle sign that he is into the heroine in uh just my type our heroine is going on like a series of tasks I guess you could say to show that she can be a single person one of those things is to kiss a stranger and the hero of the book is actually at the bar where she is trying to find someone to kiss and you can see his jealousy kind of come to the Forefront come to a head you're wondering like oh why is he jealous and the heroine's wondering like why is he jealous is he jealous why is he being so grumpy and it's because he has a thing for her he doesn't tell her not to kiss a stranger he is not controlling about it but just that subtle jealousy to kind of show that he is affected by the things that the heroine does that I really enjoy and I've seen that a few times in books um and that works for me again I don't love the over-the-top like you can't do this sort of jealousy but the subtle jealousy I'm very into and then lastly is one that I think I haven't seen any romance in a while but it's something that I really like I feel like I read it a lot in Hawaii back in the day and it is the Trope of I can't sleep unless I'm sleeping next to you usually it's like a hero has insomnia or he has nightmares because of trauma and he needs the heroine to sleep next to him not in a sexual sense but just in a comforting sense I just love it I think it's so romantic and I love seeing it like develop into something more I just think there's something really nice about like we're in the same bed together it's kind of it's similar I guess you could say in a sense to the there's only one bedroom but I think it takes it a step further yeah sing and progress into something romantic is something that I'm very much into so those are the list of things uh tropes and things that I love in books there's definitely more than what I listed here but I feel like this should give you a good idea of the kind of things that I like in books it's hard to articulate when you are very very picky what exactly works and what doesn't and kind of the nuances of that but hopefully this gave you kind of a guideline um to work off of if you watch my videos and you're like okay what does this like I get it I get it I'm very um hard to understand I guess at times I feel like this kind of showed you maybe some of the things I like if you want to see the version of this where I talk about things I I hate in books that one's a little bit more broad it's not just like romance specific I'll leave a link to that in the description down below but thanks so much for watching this video in the comments down below let me know if you like any of these tropes and let me know also what your favorite tropes are or like things that you love to see in Romance or books in general I love else so much and until next time thank you\n"